New research has linked inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with a long lasting, overactive immune cell.A new study has identified a link between IBD and the presence of a dysfunctional immune cell that continues to overreact for a long time.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), IBD is a general name for two diseases that involve the ongoing inflammation of a person’s gastrointestinal tract.
The gastrointestinal tract runs from the mouth to the anus and includes the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and the large intestine. The final part of the gastrointestinal tract is the rectum, which leads out to the anus.
The two diseases associated with IBD are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Crohn’s can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth to the anus, though it most often affects the small intestine.
Crohn’s disease results in patchy, deep tissue damage, whereas ulcerative colitis damage is continuous, usually starting in the rectum and extending into the large intestine (the colon). The inflammation results in surface-level tissue damage. The CDC highlight that both forms of IBD can result in diarrhea, pain in the abdomen, bloody stools, tiredness, and weight loss. While treatments for IBD have improved, some people still do not respond well over the long term.
In 2015, around 1.3% of adults in the United States received a diagnosis of IBD — a significant increase from 1999, where about 0.9% had the disease. Scientists believe that a person develops IDB when their immune system overreacts, causing inflammation. However, they are less clear about what parts of the immune system does this, and why.
To understand what role the immune system plays in IBD, a team of scientists from across the world conducted an experiment to analyze in detail the immune cells present in rectal biopsies or blood of people with IBD.
Since ulcerative colitis affects the same part of the gut in everyone who has it, scientists find it easier to study than Crohn’s disease. The scientists obtained samples from the rectum of seven people with ulcerative colitis and compared these with nine people who did not have the disease.
They used mRNA and antigen receptor sequencing, they took advantage of a state-of-the-art approach allowing them to generate mRNA and antigen receptor sequencing data from the same single-cells and analyzed thousands of individual cells.
